


9/14/36

by ghostburr



Category: 18th - Fandom, American Revolution RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:40:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostburr/pseuds/ghostburr
Summary: wrote this six years ago, reposing it here x





	9/14/36

Strange position they’d found themselves in, Aaron thought to himself. 

There was a pattern in life, somewhere, and he promised himself he’d find it. He didn’t remember when he first realized that history repeated itself–or maybe it wasn’t even a conscious revelation. Maybe it was something that just happened slowly. Subtly. 

The date was September 14th, 1836. Hot, muggy. Too hot for early autumn. Around him drifted in and out of focus different beings, some he recognized, some whom he’d forgotten. Stacks of papers surrounded him in shoddy, unorganized piles. He tried–he honestly did–to make some sense of them. But every time he would face a signature here, a fingerprint there, an insult on top of it, the papers made less and less sense. And mattered less. A maid flew in and out of his stuffy room, fire roaring. Someone made a crude remark, comparing the insufferable heat to the flames of hell. 

A single sheet fell from the table next to him, Aaron was too tired to pick it up. 

He was thinking about patterns again. Thinking about words on pages that would help him make sense of his place in the world. That’s what those men didn’t teach you–Chesterfield and Machiavelli and Aristotle and all them–how to find your place. 

They gave you tools, of course, but never told you what to build.

Wasn’t that what he had lived through? Desperate, lonely men trying to use these tools with out a blueprint? Each thinking he’d found the answer? Some willing to risk their lives. 

Aaron breathed in heavily, felt the air fill his lungs and deflate. Felt everything but his lower half, paralyzed by a stroke two years earlier. A small smile formed on his mouth and he could not help but laugh. 

“Of course, of course.”

His dusty voice drifted from somewhere deep inside of him and he imagined the last hours of his penitent rival. 

“Of course, of course.”

An old, gnarled hand reached out to the table beside him and touched a stack of letters. Pained with arthritis, he pulled it back and placed it in his lap, fingers curled. All sharp. Remembered apologies, empty and self serving. And remembered those who refused to apologize. He was one of them.

Aaron remembered that he was out of cigars, and there would probably be no reason to ask for more. 

He leaned back, as best he could, into a more relaxed position. Remembered eating ice cream in Paris so cold, he joked with Theo that it would probably kill him. Well, he had  _hoped_  to joke with her. That was, Aaron remembered, rendered quite impossible. 

The black-eyed Colonel entertained hopes of seeing his daughter again. He didn’t care how. 

His heart slowed and he knew he was on the brink of eternity.

More figures moved, unsettled, around him. A minister clothed in black approached him. 

Oh, splendid!

Did he renounce his sins? Did he regret the things he’d done, regardless of circumstances? Colonel, your immortal soul is in danger. You were profligate and remorseless. Lusting after money and flesh indiscriminately. Those men are not awarded a place in Heaven, Colonel. Do you know this? Your grandfather was a minister, Colonel, remember?

Aaron spent the last hours of his life remembering everything.

The shades of his life–from the blinding to the bleak–danced before his closed eyes. He was so tired. Why would they not leave him alone?

Colonel, answer me.

“On that subject, I am coy.”

The minister stepped back, aghast. The tiny, mischievous, self-satisfied grin played on Aaron’s mouth for a fleeting second. He knew where he was going. And more importantly, where he was not going. The black robed minister left the room depressed, shaking his head to those standing around. Aaron was so tired. 

Why give humanity tools if only to punish them for using the tools?

It simply defied logic.

So these were to be his last thoughts.

His maid walked by, worry painted her features.

“Madame…” Aaron opened his mouth and let the almost inaudible words escape him. It would appear that she heard him; a second later she burst into tears and knelt beside him.

She gripped his hand and he marveled at how warm it was.  

They were all gone: Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Marshall, Madison, Monroe. Theodosia and Theo. Little Alston and his father. The cruelty of it hit Aaron and caused him to cough. 

There was no logic to it. None at all. 

He yawned one last time, and his maid stood beside him, face covered. A flushed man burst into his chambers, causing the maid to start. Who are you? Get out! Her voice cut through the hot air, stifling air, and Aaron lifted his head one more time to see what the commotion was about. 

The flushed man locked eyes with Aaron–yes, those eyes–and he felt the final nail in the coffin. 

“Your divorce is finalized, Colonel Burr. Here are the papers,” Alexander Hamilton, Jr., threw them on the table nearest to him, and sneered. “You are free, for once.”

He turned on his heels and left Aaron in a state of blurred confusion. The maid’s inarticulate apologies meant nothing. 

Aaron closed his eyes immediately after the young Hamilton left. He decided those were the things that made life worth living. Pain and pleasure–because without one there cannot be the other–Sade taught him that. 

The black-eyed man gripped the arm of his chair, indifferent to the sobs of his maid. His heart stopped and the grandfather clock chimed two pm. 

A poetic little man greeted him on the beach and told him, in frenetic breathlessness that he was waiting for his ship to arrive and carry him away–to a new life. Aaron nodded cheerfully: he, too, was waiting for a ship that would deliver his daughter. And his own life would be complete. 


End file.
